Healing Fully With Rest - Is It Really That Big of a Deal?

[Crazy Jerome]

I don't know that the current healing appeals to either side of the ball in terms of how much healing their should be. My biggest problem with healing in its current form is it penalizes the class that should be healing fastest. The fighter has always been screwed in terms of healing. The fighter arguably should be the class that recovers the fastest, but is often the one that takes the longest.

To me 8 hp of damage to a fighter doesn't mean the same thing as 8 hp of damage to a wizard. And as the fighter is on the front line, he will often take weeks to recover where the wizard will take a day or two. From reading all the playtest reports, it seems like the 15 minute work day is back, and the current healing only promotes that. The caster will get their spells back, but so to does the fighter get his hp back. So in the current iteration the fighter gets to recover all of his resources just like the casters...

Assuming an option to not auto heal back to full with an extended rest (or maybe even with such an option), one possibility with the "Hit Dice" is to simply give the fighter more of these dice than he should otherwise receive and/or liberalize the rules for using them. Maybe the fighter is the guy that is so tough that he can use an extra die (and has it to spend) or can use a die without a healing kit or use one in combat (such as second wind).

I was considering that earlier in the context of how they have talked about the fighter getting his extra attacks as free actions. This allows them to keep the "one action per round" economy--and not penalize the fighter with a "full attack" type requirement. Well, if the fighter is expected to get up front and duke it out all the time, maybe what he needs is some "free hit points and/or free hit point restoration" that lets him do that. As a bonus, then he doesn't need to be healed all the time, and the cleric can thus use his spells for something besides healing or heal the foolish rogue or wizard occasionally.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

As a DM I like to create tension through diminishing resources.

A five day slog guarding a caravan through hostile territory, your hit points diminishing more each day than you can replace, knowing that if the enemies on the last day come as strong as they did yesterday then you're probably done for, is a lot more suspenseful and fun than if the previous days' combats having no effect on your status for tomorrow.

You can still have suspense without diminishing hit points, but none have the same psychological impact as watching your health slowly go away.

 

[Thalionalfirin]

Agree with Firelance: The key issues are tying all resource restoration together on roughly the same schedule, and should there be an intermediate step between short rest and full recovery?


Providing explicit "dial" settings for the time required for each rest period is half the answer. The other half is providing that intermediate setting. I suggest something like this, spring-boarding off of some previous discussion:

• Short rest - as playtest.
• Moderate rest - by default 8 hours, even in rough conditions (e.g. a dungeon, the wild), get back hit points equal to rolling all Hit Dice for free, then restore all Hit Dice (which can then be used immediately with kit or saved). Also make appropriate checks to restore each spell slot (or any other form of "daily" powers).
• Extended rest - as playtest, but require several days to a week in a safe, restful location to get the benefits.

Then besides dialing the time periods of each of these to suit the campaign, you are also encouraged to "switch" off one or two of them, as also fits the campaign. You want something quasi Basic-like? Switch off the short rest. Want something a lot like 4E? Switch off the moderate rest (and dial down the time on the extended rest).

In addition to all of that, I would also suggest a module (but not core) for an abstract "extreme fatigue" system, that is designed to provide a strategic death spiral but not a tactical one. Provide several ways that characters that hit zero hit points, cast major spells, etc. can get -1 (stackable) to future checks, curable only with an extended rest or major magic. For the baseline, something like -1 per every strenuous day, unless a check succeeds, would work. This option is solely to put some bite into "operational play" where that is desired, without getting too draconian on the hit point and spell restoration. As such, it should be ignored for more cinematic games.

Regardless of how the rules turn out, I'm pretty sure I'm going to incorporate this rest scenario.

I am going to say that an extended rest is similar to the one the Fellowship took when it got to Rivendell in the Lord of the Rings. It has to be safe and comfortable with bedrest.

I'm going to ponder implementing something like this for spell recovery as well.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

TL;DR: While a party should be able to survive without a healer, since nobody should be forced to play a class they don't enjoy, having a healer should give the party a big advantage. Instant overnight healing changes that to only a small advantage.

FWIW, insofar as it is practical, I do not want any particular kinds party composition to be unambiguously vastly better for most kinds of adventuring. Therefore keeping the advantage of a cleric smallish is a very good thing.

5r strongly devalues healing spells outside of combat, while keeping the healing niche potent enough during combat. I think that is a strategically and tactically interesting enough to make room for a solid healer niche in the game.

 

[Lalato]

I agree with Scribble...

The only time I even think of a PC as injured is when they are at 0 or below. 9 times out of 10, that PC gets magically healed above 0 which represents to me the PC's wounds closing and they are ready for action once again. I can't tell you how many times I've had characters in the negatives, they get healed by a timely CLW wand from the bard or cleric and they're right back in the thick of things without any penalties.

So, honestly, I have no problem with healing overnight. That said, I've being playing D&D for over 30 years and in that time I've played in grim and gritty as well as super hero type games. Both are enjoyable to me on some level. I think the core should likely be a similar mechanic to what is presented in the playtest, but alongside it there should be other options.

Remember folks... modules don't necessarily mean that the options will not be presented in the same book as the core rules. It's just another word for options in the Next parlance. Based on Mike Mearles' comments, I think they're aware of the "realism" problem and your feedback on the playtest may help get a grittier option into the rules.

Provide your feedback to WotC... complaining on a forum without providing feedback to WotC will do none of us any good. And for those of you that have not taken the time to participate in the playtest, I'm thinking of folks like my DM (who shuns playtests for some odd reason) and steeldragon who posted above, please reconsider. Download the materials and give your honest feedback.

 

[GX.Sigma]

In the playtest itself, it's irrelevant as the entire party gets free healing every night due to the Cleric's background trait.

My worry is, while it's easy to houserule the healing on rest (your character level + con mod per night sound reasonable), the "back at full after a night's sleep" thing reaches into a lot of things. The stirge and the wight, for example, have effects that last until the victim's next long rest. How are you supposed to houserule all of those?